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VCU to Add Women's Lacrosse in 2015-16

Virginia Commonwealth University will add women's lacrosse as a varsity
sport beginning in the 2015-2016 school year. The
university's board of visitors approved the addition Thursday. The
Rams will offer 12 scholarships — the NCAA maximum for
women's lacrosse — and will compete in the Atlantic
10, the school's home conference.

It is the first sport the school has added since 1995, when VCU
debuted its women's soccer program. Title IX compliance was the
primary motivation for the decision. While the Rams have eight
men's varsity teams and eight women's varsity teams, and they do
not sponsor football, and VCU has a student population that skews
female.

A press release from the school announcing the addition of
women's lacrosse stated that, "given that VCU has a greater
proportion of women than men in the general undergraduate
population, VCU athletics determined that adding a women's lacrosse
team was necessary to help ensure the university is in compliance
with Title IX."

The news of the addition was first reported by
the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The
Times-Dispatch story notes that while women constituted 55% of
VCU's 2012 undergraduate enrollment, only 49.9% of the
student-athlete population was female.